


When I Grow Up

by orphan_account



Series: Short Change Hero [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So much did he love that man, the one with the broken psyche and the scars and the crooked smile, the freckles of beige across his shoulders like the constellations of a perfect world and the freckles of hazel in his soft green eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Grow Up

He wanted to be the good guy again. He wanted the fighting and the strife and the pain, the sacrifices and the camaraderie, more than anything else in the world. He wanted Dean.

It was selfish, vain, and even what most would consider xenophilia when taking into account that they were from two entirely separate realms; but when the fighting and the strife finally became too much for Castiel’s conscience, he closed his eyes and though of Dean. The hunter would have heart in his eyes, staring at him after he’d misinterpreted a figure of speech or embarrassed himself back in the early days, like he was a horse of a different color and more precious than Dean had ever imagined anything could be.

He was Dean’s someone, back then. So it wasn’t in a romantic sense, and Castiel still didn’t know what the appeal of carnal pleasures were, but he wanted Dean’s soft, butter mellow magnolia lazy-Saturday-afternoons soul back to being bright and beautiful, so convinced that Castiel was one of the good guys, another misfit in his corner to cajole and protect.

The angels wanted a leader. Raphael wanted to lead, and wondered so avidly, in his cruel, boy-with-a-magnifying-glass-on-an-anthill way, why Castiel seemed to be the only other angel who had no desire to fall into line.

Castiel had figured out exactly why that was the day he saw Lisa fling herself back into Dean’s arms after all the horror was over with, and joy for his friend’s sake wasn’t the foremost emotion Castiel experienced. Dean was his leader, now. The one he believed in above all others, the one he would follow for any cause, fight for in any wars, all for the inescapable pride of saying that he was Dean’s.

But that wasn’t possible now, not in this universe. He had sullied himself by making the sacrifices he had (Dean would’ve fought, tooth and nail, taken the rules and bent them beyond recognition until justice was a goal legitimately plausible) and ruined himself for this wonderful, broken man through his association with Crowley.

The brothers were in a quaint little motel in Lafayette, California at the moment, Castiel putting a war in heaven on hold to look on at them with infinite tenderness. There was a lovely weariness in the set of Dean’s limbs, walking out of the bathroom from brushing his teeth to flop back down on the mediocre mattress with a satisfied ‘huff’, shower-wet hair sticking up at odd angles. Even now, the man was something so beautiful it made Castiel’s chest ache inexplicably, a keening sound of mourning that would never see the light of day building like the wrath of a God abandoned in the hollows of his throat.

So much did he love that man, the one with the broken psyche and the scars and the crooked smile, the freckles of beige across his shoulders like the constellations of a perfect world and the freckles of hazel in his soft green eyes.

That’s what Raphael, what Crowley didn’t understand. He didn’t need a God anymore. He needed Dean Winchester.

Heavy in his trench coat pocket the game-changer lie placidly, bottled up like something containable. The other reason he’d gone into the pit with Sam, Michael and Lucifer. Souls were stretched thin there, matter of strict form pulled like taffy in ways obscene. Once he’d made it, past layer upon layer of misery and bone deep agony that resonated too close to redemption for comfort, it had been so easy to get. Pulled, unnoticed, off a section of Michael’s tortured form.

The smallest, brightest bit of his Grace. Grace itself, when separated from its natural host, held no inkling of that being’s personality- there was no Michael, in the sense of a sentient being, in that shining bit of light. It was just pure power, that tiny piece getting bigger and bigger with every passing day. He could put it into himself, nourish it, and become the most formidable force of good this world had ever seen.

But Castiel had never really wanted to lead anything. No, he planned to put it to good use. To create the leader that humanity deserved, that angels deserved, able to stop all of this horrible, macabre madness before it had time to take root. He would go back in time and put it into Dean Winchester. And this time, he would do the man (the icon, the hero, the love of his long and miserable turned precious and glorious life) right.

\---

Castiel had never actually spent much time in Kansas, before, but the town of Lawrence one year to the day after Dean Winchester’s birth resonated with a cloying, molasses melancholy that could only be associated with ‘home’. Dean’s nursery was awash with pastel colors and caricature animals in the grey light of early morning, a fleecy blue blanket over a small, sleeping figure the only indication that the light of Castiel’s life resided here at all.

Slowly, with much blinking and squirming about, the infant opened his tired little eyes, and Castiel’s breath caught in the limbo of his lungs. Intellectually, he’d been aware that this child would grow into the man that was his everything, but seeing those eyes in that soft, innocent face…

They stared at each other like that for a moment, Dean regarding him with a mix of the inherent curiosity that would come to define him and baby-wariness, before, with a little flourish, like he still wasn’t quite sure how this movement thing worked yet, reached out his hand to Cas.

And smiled like only children can, toothless and guileless and adoring, like to trust is the most natural thing in the world. Unbidden, pressure welled up behind Castiel’s eyes, moisture gathering brightly as his throat constricted. He reached out a hand for Dean to grasp, the chubby little fingers closing firmly around the angel’s index finger and pulling it up to his little pink mouth to gnaw harmlessly.

“You…” Castiel swallowed thickly, words for but a moment far beyond his reach, “…are so precious to me. It is… painful, sometimes.” The tears fell, and Dean kept on gumming happily at his fingers, like the proverbial shoulder to cry on, those bright green eyes holding everything he’d never known he’d wanted. “I’m going to be good to you this time, alright? You’ll, you’ll never know the threat of an apocalypse, and Azazel would never dare compromise the loved one of…” Castiel stopped again, wonderment coloring his words, “… of an archangel. An earthbound one, of course. I would never… I know how much you love it here. The people. The freedom. This is your realm.” He stated solemnly, and baby Dean chewed at his finger and made infantile ‘coo’ing noises equally solemnly. To Cas, at least.

And he had been the one to break Dean’s heart. The revelation aches low in his chest, makes his muscles tighten and his throat constrict in an aborted sob that he does not deserve to bellow, because with the release of grief comes acceptance, and he refuses to accept himself until Dean accepts him. This babe would grow to be the righteous man, and Castiel would know to pay him his due, this time around. Baby Dean’s soul was small and lovely, fluid and velveteen without the streak of steel it would grow to have, grow to need later in life.

The tiniest Archangel. And Castiel would watch over him, liberate him of what wrongs he could without altering the man Dean needed to be, and try, with all his might, to atone for the grievous betrayal that hung like the metaphorical albatross from around his neck. But seeing Dean here, so fragile and alive, brought with it a fortitude the likes of which Castiel had never felt before, rooted firmly in the stubborn, belligerent hope that would be Dean’s defining feature.

Tear tracks drying salty on his smiling face, Castiel stepped back from the cot. He had work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> EXCUSE ME WHILE I IGNORE THE SEASON SIX FINALE. I just… ugh, I need my Cas to be compassionate for this story to work, so we’re developing selective blindness here, ‘kay?
> 
> Posted at my LJ a while ago, but I only just got my AO3 and I'm actually quite fond of this story, so cross-posting here. There's a good chance there'll be more drabbles and stories in this verse on the way.


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